How to clean your soft pastels

Now that I have been busy creating new mixed media collages and paintings after a long pause, I realized my soft pastels were dirty and in need of a good cleaning.

A good set of pastels (Sennelier and Rembrandt are my favorite) is an absolute necessity when you are working with mixed media, and in order to get the best of them, you must keep them clean so the color you lay down on the paper is pure….

This was definitively not the case! So, something had to be done and I set out to clean them. Want to see how I did it so you can clean your pastels too? Keep reading!

The greatest thing about the method I use is that it’s really simple and it does not use any fancy materials. In fact, you probably have what you need at home. All you need is cornstarch, and a bowl.

Just start by dumping the cornstarch on your bowl, and then drop your colors into the bowl.

See how they look before? Yuck! You are not going to get a solid color with all that dust around.

Sift the pastels and color sticks in your bowl for a minute or two and see if the colors were cleaned from your sticks.

Cornstarch is a mild abrasive, so as you rub your soft pastel color sticks in the bowl, the rubbing action will get the dust off them and they will look like new when you are done.

There! A super clean and nice pastel, ready to make beautiful things with your hands! Now go and clean yours, and create something beautiful with them!

And don’t forget to share with your friends and post in the comments your creations! I’d love to see what you do with your clean pastels!

ABOUT ME

Lover of rainy days. Doll maker. Painter. Creator of beauty.
I am an artist, and art is my life.
To me, creation is not a choice, but an imperative from the inscrutable exhortations from my soul.
I must create to feel alive, and to let my mind flow in peace, exploring every corner of the worlds I create.
Everything I create is inspired by my personal experiences and memories, my emotions and moods will always shape the things I paint and the art dolls I create.
I chose mixed media, watercolors and hand sculpted art dolls to express my emotions.
I only paint females, concentrating on expressing emotions and feelings trough colors and shapes without much thought on how realistic they should be.
On my paintings and my dolls everything is dreamy, surreal and whimsical. Everything except for the eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul, and I really express myself trough the eyes of my creations. Their sadness, sorrow, anger and joy are instantly recognizable, and you can feel the emotions I felt when I was in the process of creation pouring out of them.